run after Quill-Weave and tell her about your phobia. She just left goddamit xD

Right! You rush to the door and-

Holy shit, Quill-Weave knows parkour?

By the time you finish that thought, she is far out of sight. There is pretty much no chance of catching up with her before she reaches the castle.

I’m wrote:

Katia, when did you first have this irrational fear of royalties?

You don’t know! This isn’t like the beard thing, where you just made it up to deal with some upsetting childhood event. You genuinely have no idea why you are afraid of royalty. You keep telling yourself there’s nothing to be afraid of, but that doesn’t make it any better.

Soadreqm wrote:

Katia is trying to begin her life anew, and facing her old fears seems like it would be a part of that. She’s got wizard robes and a magic amulet and she’s going to be a wizard and unlike the person she used to be, she can spend a few hours in a room with a countess.

Bropocalypse wrote:

Hey, counts and countesses aren’t REALLY royalty. They’re more like…. Appointed officials. Sure they may live lavishly, but they’re not like kings and queens or something.

epoxy wrote:

[*] Imagine all the party-goers in their underwear.
[*] Before you go, find a mirror and something to use as a scepter. Pretend you are a queen. See? You’re not so terrifying.
[*] Imagine all the party-goers naked. Wait, no, that might trigger some bad memories for you, so:
[*] Imagine all the party-goers as babies. Totally non-threatening.

Okay, you can think this through rationally. You’ve just got to remain calm.

Skipping the dinner isn’t an option. You told Quill-Weave you were coming, and she even trusted you with her home. It’ll look terrible if you don’t show up. She’ll probably think you’ve done something horrible. You know full well that you’ve got to follow through.

Of course, you don’t want to show up only to embarrass her either. You’ve got to pass for a normal, classy person who can attend formal events and isn’t irrationally afraid of royalty.

You tell yourself that Katia Managan could do this. Being a new person means facing old fears. It’s just a couple hours with a countess, then you’re free to leave. Piece of cake. Maybe it will help if you imagine everyone in their underwear? You’ve never tried that before but you know it’s supposed to work. Does it work on… countesses?

It should! There’s nothing special about her. She’s barely even real royalty. She’s just an everyday person like you or Quill-Weave or Trevaia, but she lives in a castle. That doesn’t mean there’s anything to be afraid of.

RationalAbsurdity wrote:

Once you spend a few minutes with her, you’ll realize she’s a hospitable, kind old lady.
I mean, this is one of the best countesses of Cyrodiil. You’re lucky you aren’t having dinner with Leyawiin’s countess. Oh, Jegus. I heard she kidnaps argonians in the night, and tortures them in her secret dungeons. Or it could have been the count of Cheydinhal who, as rumor tells, murdered his own wife by pushing her down a flight of stairs.
So anyway, royalty obviously isn’t dangerous.

YOU’RE NOT HELPING.

Wait! You’ve got an idea.

Crazy-8 wrote:

Katia: Attempt to overcome fear of royals by talking to the royal flush from a deck of cards

Aha! A deck of playing cards.

You’ll pull the kings and queens out of this and have some little practice conversations with them, until you’re comfortable. By the time you go to dinner, dealing with royalty will be second nature to you.

You’ve just got to flip through this deck and find all the kings and queens.

Yup, just gotta start looking through this for those harmless little pictures of royals.

They’re in there somewhere.

Actually maybe first you’ll take a nice relaxing bath and then deal with this deck of cards. The cards aren’t going anywhere.

Iyestorm wrote:

First, go take a nice, relaxing bath. Take the time to think. Reflect on your position.

Well that took a good fifteen minutes to set up. You’re pretty sure you did this right? You’re more used to the public bathhouses they had back home, but that doesn’t seem to be a thing here in Cyrodiil.

Maybe you can put something in the water that’ll give you a classy scent after you bathe? You think that’s a thing high-class people do?

I’ve been noticing something people seem to not get about how fears and addictions work. It’s all completely irrational thought, you can explain it away in a million ways, but trying to think rationally in a time when you’re frozen with fear or believing something to be impossible to do isn’t something that just happens easily. Recovering from an addiction is a crippling endeavor.

Like when she drank from the broken glass, I would’ve probably used a believable action/reaction to divert her. Something like “with her hands quivering from the thought of reverting back to her old ways, some of the alcohol spills on her open wound and cause a pain reaction.” Leading to her dropping the glass.

Kazerad

Oh wow, I was wondering why this got caught in the spam filter, but apparently I still have “pills” listed as one of the trigger words. Fixed now.

Lyran

I know this post is over a month old, but this is unbelievably important to note. I myself have been finding it a touch railroaded as far as stories go, but that’s to be expected when it comes to an addict. As someone who has quit smoking at -least- 3 times, and having his family and friends constantly ponder why it’s so difficult, I can let you know it’s just simply not that easy. You work yourself into believing you want it, need it, and you can even tell yourself you don’t and fully understand that it’s not going to just be your ‘last drink’, but you’ll still do it anyways.

As for phobias, if someone told me I was going to a dinner party hosted by a spider, I could honestly say I would bug the feck out. Even if Spiders were day to day citizens who enjoyed a fine Brian Jacques novel, and good Whiskey every now and then, Dear god would I bail so hard. A bit of an overextended metaphor, I know, but it gets the idea of fear across.

Venture forth noble Khajiit, best wishes and good luck!

Tigersong

Ah-ha, Brian Jacques! … Sorry about that.

Snout

(Probably SO off topic, but watching her pace in my peripheral vision made it look a lot faster. Every time. 😮 )

Tormuse

That sounds like a variation of the “stopped clock illusion.” I read about it once and it’s a really weird thing your brain does when you suddenly, quickly turn your attention toward something and then focus on it. Your brain actually temporarily slows down your perception of time. (Seriously!) In this case, your perception of Katia pacing looked slower than it actually is for a second and then it sped up to normal speed.